by Nico Rosso
“I heard that part.” She held up her personal phone. “I just got another email from the hackers. Could they know we’re this close?”
“Not possible.” His readiness for action ramped up, and he accounted for all the weapons that were close at hand. “What did they say?”
She read, shaken, “You had a chance to quit and now you’re going to die.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.” She shrank too small.
He scoffed, “It’s easy for those worms to type their threats, but they have to hire someone to protect them. The bastards are scared. This is the only way they know how to attack.” She searched the night around them, more scared than resolved. He tried to bolster her morale. “If they knew where we were, they’d list some specifics to rattle us. The kind of car we’re driving. Our clothes. This...” He tapped her phone. “This is no threat. This is desperation and fear.”
She reread it silently, jaw set. “I’m just...so tired of them.”
“They’ve already lost.”
The highway stretched through unpopulated black hills, then leveled to a series of small cities that glittered through a narrow valley. April navigated them toward Quartz Hill. Off the main road, then to the west. Suburban developments ran right up to the edge of the high desert. He couldn’t tell if man was encroaching on nature, or if the dust and dirt were going to take over the town by dawn.
Streetlights shined down on empty streets. Whole blocks of houses were half-built, and the structures that were completed seemed unoccupied. Heavy equipment and stacks of lumber dotted the landscape. More traffic moved on the far side of the subdivision they drove through. He glimpsed illuminated signs for restaurants and a grocery store.
“Fuck.” April peered out the car windows. “They could be anywhere.”
He slowed, taking his time to pick apart the buildings. “They’re not going to set up in a construction zone. But the complete houses...?”
“Still too risky.” Her fingers tapped on her flashlight. “This area’s too unoccupied. They couldn’t come and go without someone noticing.”
Rolling down the window brought cold, dry air and the smell of raw concrete and framing wood. No food or human waste. He drove them toward the activity in town. Most of the roads to his left ended in cul-de-sacs at the edges of the hills. A half-moon turned the large rocks into burly, stoic ghosts.
He turned out the lights and cruised to a stop two blocks from the street with the shops. Two strip malls bracketed the street. Chain restaurants anchored the middle with parking lots in between.
“Do you have binoculars?” She squinted. “I can’t see anything from here.”
“Slow night.” He described what he could detect from the distance. “A few cars for the restaurants. Foot traffic in and out of the convenience store on the right-side strip mall. One drunk stumbler. Man circling the street on a bicycle, and two women chatting by a parked truck.”
She typed on her phone. “Both restaurants are open until nine p.m. tonight. Convenience store is twenty-four hours.”
“Women parted, one in the truck and another to a car in a parking lot. Bicycle man finished his laps and departed to the west.” Everyone behaved normally and not as if they knew high-end computer hackers and their hired mercenaries had set up shop somewhere nearby. “Women are away to the south and to the west.”
“This is it for business on this side of town.” She clicked off the screen on her phone and was illuminated only by the moon. “More stuff closer to the highway and south.”
“So if you were a hacker, where would you be?” He searched for that one detail to latch on to.
“Where it’s dark.” She sat up with growing intensity. “Where it’s real dark.” She pointed to the far left. “What’s in that strip mall?”
“Tobacco shop, bagel shop, check cashing. All closed.”
“Closed for the night or closed for good?” She leaned forward, as if one more foot could bring the street into focus.
“Two shops, for the night.” Flyers for local activities were taped to the insides of their windows, and dim lights glowed within. “Check cashing, closed for good.” Heavy paper covered those windows. The plastic sign over the door had lost two letters.
“That would work.” She gripped the dashboard. “I’m sure there are secure offices. Plenty of power and space for the servers.”
He put the car in drive. “They’re right at the edge of the desert.” A twenty-foot ridge of dirt and rock rose to the east of the mall. “Minimal profile. Easy in and out.” They rolled to the next intersection and he made a right, away from the mall. “Good mark.” He put his fist out. She bumped it.
“Are we going to wait?” She stretched her neck in an attempt to keep the target in view.
“We’re going to scout.” He kept driving them farther away. “Whatever business they’re doing, it’s through the back, so we need to take a look.” Only one car passed them on the suburban streets.
A woman walking her dog waved vaguely at James and April.
“Small community,” April remarked. “If we’re here, they’re assuming they should know us.”
“Strangers will stand out,” he mused. “Maybe the hackers are locals.” He steered the car through a right turn, went two blocks, then made another right to approach the street with the check cashing store. They came from below and hoped to have open territory, but found yet another subdivision of identical homes. An alley led between the cinderblock-walled backyards of these houses and back sides of the shops and restaurants on the street.
He drove past the opening on the far side from the check cashing store. The usual assortment of trash cans and spent restaurant containers lined the business side of the alley and obscured his view of the target. There were two cars and a group of men, at least six who looked to be busy with activity. James was past the alley and couldn’t get a complete headcount. But he knew one of them from the hunch of his shoulders. “Hathaway.”
April spun in her seat, but the alley was too far behind them. Her voice tightened. “It looked like they were packing up.”
James wanted to jam on the accelerator and ram into Hathaway. He needed a tactic. He needed to end this. He needed to keep April safe. He drew his pistol and handed it to her.
Chapter Twenty-One
The gun was as heavy as a curse in her hands. She kept her finger from the trigger and pointed it at the floorboard. Dread pounded through her. “I don’t know if I can use this.” She knew all the technical aspects of firing the weapon, but only at paper targets.
“It’s for protection.” James’s face was set, eyes determined. He tugged the magazines from his holster and gave them to her. “You’re going to be at a distance. I’m making the assault.” He continued driving them through the streets until they were back on the edge of the development. The car came to a stop in the same place they’d surveyed the shops from.
James brought himself close to her and pointed to the far left. Their intimate space was betrayed by the fear and danger. “You see that ridge?”
She followed his look to the bare desert landscape at the edge of the development. “I see it.”
“I want you to get out of the car here.” He indicated all the moves and directions with his hand. “Hit the terrain at the end of this street, then follow it up to that ridge, staying on the backside until you’re above the alley. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “I have the high ground.”
“Exactly.” He smiled, but her nerves continued to hum. “Give me your burner phone.”
She tugged it from a coat pocket and handed it over. He opened the dialer and punched in a number, but didn’t hit connect. “That’s Automatik,” she assumed.
“Correct.” He returned the phone. “I’ll catch them up now. Use that
in an emergency.”
“This feels like an emergency.” The phone jumped in her hands, and she had difficulty putting it back in her pocket.
How did he stay so calm? “This is my trade, has been for many years and many missions.” He took her in, gaze deepening. “But I have a damn good reason for doing it tonight.” His fingers stroked her cheek. She reached out and clutched his arm. They came together in a kiss. She tried to absorb all of him, hold on to him. Keep him safe. His passion was undiminished. When they parted, that fierce determination was in his eyes. “We finish them tonight, and we leave here together.”
She wasn’t ready to let him go. All the terrible possibilities spun through her head. Loss had nearly broken her before. She didn’t think she could recover from it again. She kissed him, felt his life, his power, and convinced herself he’d always be that way. “Together.”
“Yes,” he promised.
After a trembling breath, she opened the door. The magazines fit in her pockets, but the gun was too big. She held it out to him. “You’ll need it.”
He declined, gazing with malice toward the check cashing store. “I’ll get another one.” A predatory energy radiated from him. She’d felt that transformation before, when they’d been attacked outside the school. It was a little frightening. She fed off it and tried to let it inhabit her as well.
She had a gun, ammunition, a flashlight like a club. Her orders were clear. Finally. They weren’t running. They were chasing. She left the car and hurried behind it, stuffing the flashlight in her back pocket. She skipped across the street to where the desert rose out of the neighborhood. Dust and rocks slipped under her feet. She kept the pistol safe and used her other hand to help scramble up.
At the top of the ridge, she turned. James held his hand up in a wave, then curled it into a fist. Their gazes parted and he drove away. The car slipped into the neighborhood on a winding route. She climbed over the top of the small hill and pressed forward, staying in the shadows and unseen by anyone in town.
To her left, the landscape spread farther into wilderness. She walked the border, armed and preparing for a fight. A few dozen yards into her trek, she stopped and peeked over the rise in the hill. She’d gained elevation but hadn’t reached her destination. The check cashing store was still a block away. She searched over the streets but couldn’t see James or the car.
Worry would root her feet in place. She forced them to move toward the position James had indicated. She was a member of Automatik. His partner in this mission. She’d insisted on going along. That meant continuing on while trying to grip the gun with a cold, sweaty palm.
Her steps were impossibly loud. They must’ve been echoing across the entire valley, alerting everyone to her presence. But there were only pebbles grating together under her shoes. Her nerves strung tight, ready to jump with the sound of gunfire. Was that what James was planning? He had the shotgun and two pocketfuls of shells. There were at least six men outside. With what kinds of weapons? And how many men were inside the closed store?
One foot in front of the other. Keep moving.
She hiked up the steepest part of the incline and lowered herself to crawl up to the peak. The alley behind the check cashing store was a half a block away and below her. There were only four men outside now. They had two cars parked in opposite directions in the alley. Another man came and went through the back door of the store. No one else was around in the alley to see their activity. At times a flashlight would burst with light, then dim as someone loaded a cardboard box into the trunk of one of the cars.
The fuckers were moving. Had they taken the servers out yet? If they had, she was sure they’d back them up in the cloud. She had to get the hard drives. She had to gain access to the hackers’ cloud server. But she couldn’t just run down from the hill, running and screaming and shooting until they all ran away.
Where was James? The men moved freely. Her heart thundered. They could get away. Was one of the cars running? She thought she saw puffs of smoke from the tailpipe. But it was too far for specifics. She took out the burner phone and laid it on the dirt next to her, ready to connect to Automatik. If there was a signal on the edge of town. The screen indicated one small bar. It could flicker out any second.
Her attention was torn from the phone by a car turning into the alley. It approached from the far side. It was James. When he passed the restaurants, the headlights turned off. The shadows were too thick to see him in the driver’s seat. He drove straight toward the cars by the check cashing store. And he wasn’t slowing down. The men in the alley saw him coming and planted their feet, as if their presence alone could stop anyone. But James had no intention of stopping.
The men started shouting and at least one drew a pistol as the car sped nearer. She held her breath. James could survive the impact but would be exposed to the mercenaries. The car slammed into both the parked cars, wedging them apart. The sound of crumpling metal and breaking glass reached all the way to her hill, as did the shouts of the men. James’s car’s tires continued to screech as it ground forward. The men scattered away from the lurching machine. One of them fired two shots, punching holes in the windshield where the driver was.
She choked a scream back. James. James.
The tires spun and burned into thick smoke. The men all had their weapons out and flanked the car. More mercenaries rushed out from the back of the shop, one with a submachine gun. She clenched her jaw and wanted to close her eyes. There was no way out of the car. The man in charge waved for the other’s attention. Hathaway. He chopped down with his hand, and the mercenaries opened fire. The car was riddled with bullets. The engine howled and sprayed jets of fluid. A small fire broke out under the hood, forcing the men back two steps.
One man braved the flames and crept to the driver’s door, gun ready. He cracked it open. She dreaded seeing James’s body flop out. But the man shook his head and reached into the car to turn the engine off.
While the mercenaries were drawn to the car, another figure swept into the alley from the side closest to her. It was James. A wave of relief was short-lived. He held his shotgun and sprang into combat.
His first blast took out the man closest to him. The others spun, weapons ready. James fired again, wounding another mercenary who dove behind one of the cars. The others opened fire, forcing James to take cover around the corner of the building. The brick and plaster chipped away near him, but he remained calm enough to reload the shotgun from the shells she’d put in his pockets.
He whipped around the corner and fired a blast that made the other men seek safety. While they scrambled, he advanced to the first man he’d hit, took his pistol and put it in his shoulder holster.
A mercenary popped up from cover and shot twice, making James leap away. Her blood boiled. She couldn’t tell if he’d been hit. He recovered and returned fire. The blast licked a long flame out of the shotgun. The man’s scream echoed out.
James retreated again. The mercenaries grew more furious with their gunfire. The shots crackled through the night. Someone must’ve called the police by now. But what the hell were they going to do against this? And James might be a target as well.
She punched the connect button on her burner phone and prayed for a signal. After one ring, a steady woman’s voice answered, “How can I help you?”
“This is April Banks, I’m with James Sant—”
“Has the situation escalated?”
“They’re shooting,” she hissed a breathless whisper. “Around five men.”
“Is James alone?”
“Yes.” April winced as her heart contracted. He maintained his cover at the side of the building, but the mercenaries were coming closer behind their ongoing assault.
“We’ll scramble assets to your position.”
“Th...thank you.” April left the line open and put the phone down. The woman’s
question hammered into April. Is James alone? He couldn’t survive against the onslaught. Whatever plan he had wasn’t working.
But he wasn’t alone. April clenched her teeth and aimed her pistol down into the crowd of mercenaries. James edged farther back from where the men fired at him. She pulled the trigger, and the gun bucked. The men below didn’t react. Had James had given her blanks as a decoy? But she’d loaded the magazines herself. The din in the alley must’ve masked her shot. She had no idea where the bullet had struck.
April steeled herself and fired again, this time in a quick series of shots. She was sure they’d all go wild but hoped they’d distract the mercenaries enough for James to get to safety. Her bullets streaked down. One popped a hole in the hood of a car. Two more skipped off the asphalt.
The men scattered for cover again, only glancing out to look in her direction. She could see a part of Hathaway behind a Dumpster. He made hand gestures to the others and waved forward.
Two mercenaries broke off from the group. James was just starting to advance when the others resumed firing at him. He tightened himself to cover, shotgun raised and ready. The two men aimed their guns and shot at April as they ran toward her hill. She ducked back as the bullets sprayed dirt over her.
Looking to see where the men were would put her in the line of fire. The barrage continued toward James. More shots rang out and chipped away the rocks at the top of her ridge. She was pinned. Time was running out.
Chapter Twenty-Two
No. No. No.
Two mercenaries charged April’s hill. James seethed. He was forced to cover by the remaining men and had to get to her. It wouldn’t be long until Hathaway and the others advanced on him. He’d counted on that, knowing he could use their bravado against them and pick them off one at a time. After blocking one exit of the alley with the car wreck, he’d have funneled them right toward him.
But April fired and drew too much attention. He didn’t blame her. From her perspective, he probably looked like an easy target for the mercenaries. Her concern warmed his heart. But his blood still ran cold.
